


A Good Fit

by closemyeyesandleap



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 9-year-old Skye, Adoption, Based on 01X03 "the Asset", Bullying, Canon Compliant, Epilogue Tags:, Foster Care, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Motherhood, Not Infinity-War Compliant, Not everyone in Skye's past was awful, St. Agnes Nuns, The 90s, mama may
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-06-09 12:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15267060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closemyeyesandleap/pseuds/closemyeyesandleap
Summary: *UPDATED WITH EPILOGUE*The nuns told Skye that she just wasn't a good fit for the Brodys. They lied.-or-Skye/Daisy is precious and surely some family at some point wanted to love her as much as she wanted to be loved. This is that story.Epilogue summary: the Brodys go to Chicago to look for Daisy at a SHIELD forum in the city.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> TWs for description of child abuse, bullying, and derogatory comments about foster kids, all relatively mild. Those are all in chapter two and three.

When Linda Brody picked the little girl up at St. Agnes on the windy morning in early March, she was struck by the nine-year-old’s wide eyes. The child didn’t seem shy, just apprehensive. Linda Brody felt nervous herself. The Brodys had only fostered once before, and Linda still felt butterflies about meeting the new child. She and her husband, Rick, had started fostering two years before, hoping to ultimately adopt. Their house had felt empty, far too quiet, after her son, Randy, had gone off to college and then moved on to start his adult life five years before. Though she had gotten pregnant with Randy far too young, at 15, the young man had been the light of Linda’s life. 

When she’d married Rick a decade before, the couple had been eager to have a few kids together. It soon became clear, however, that Rick could not have children, and the couple put aside their dreams of a big family for the time being and focused on raising Randy. Still, with both Linda and Rick still a couple of years from their fortieth birthdays, they weren’t quite ready to be empty-nesters. They had considered adopting a baby, but Linda was struck with how many school-aged kids and teenagers were out there who were often overlooked in the system. Besides, perhaps it was a side effect of the stresses of teenage motherhood, but Linda never grew to enjoy the early years, full of feedings, dirty diapers, and sporadic sleep. 

Linda and Rick Brody had hoped to adopt both of the first two children they had fostered, six-year-old twins, but the kids’ birth mom had been able to reestablish custody. They were happy for the children and for their second chance at a stable life with their biological family, but their hearts broke waving goodbye to them after the twins spent a year in their care. They never wanted to go through that pain again, and so they were excited about Mary Sue, a girl with no known relatives to claim her back before they could adopt her.

Linda Brody broke the awkward silence before it could settle in the car. “I’m so happy I’m going to get to know you, Mary Sue,” she said, her voice a little too high in her excitement. The girl muttered a, “me too, Ms. Brody,” but in the rearview mirror, Linda saw her mouth tighten into a grimace, and the little girl stared out the window.

Linda tried again. “You can call me Linda. And I’m sorry, I should have asked. Do you prefer ‘Mary’ or ‘Mary Sue’?” 

A hopeful look flashed into the girl’s dark eyes. “Mm, Skye?” she said questioningly.

Linda glanced out the window, wondering what her new foster daughter was referring to. Dark clouds had rolled in, concealing the soft blue from earlier in the morning when she’d began the trek to St. Agnes. “Yes, it looks like it’s going to rain, doesn’t it? Storm’s coming. So, what would you like me to call you, honey?” 

“Skye, please. If that’s OK.” The child paused, and followed up as if in an afterthought. “That’s gonna be… I’m not… Mary’s not me. And I’m _really_ not Mary Sue.” 

Relieved she understood the girl was saying, Linda nodded and smiled widely. “That’s a beautiful name. So, do you have a favorite subject in school, Skye?”

For the first time in the car ride, the nine-year-old smiled.  
…

While the first week home was a little tense, during the second week, the apprehension slowly left Skye’s eyes, replaced by a hopeful, playful twinkle. Linda noticed that the child hadn’t fully unpacked her small suitcase, though, which she thought was odd. What is more, every evening after school, Skye would dutifully place her sneakers into the luggage which was littered with a few buttons, a small teddy bear, a dried orange leaf the size of a man’s hand, and a toy car.

“Honey, I’ll help you find a place for those things in your room,” she offered on Skye’s fourth day in the house. Skye shook her head rapidly, then, as if afraid she had caused offense, said, “no thank you, Ms. Brody.”

“Please, sweetie. Call me Linda, OK?” 

Skye was well-behaved. A little too well behaved. Instead of running through the house’s long halls like Randy had done at her age, Skye seemed to move like a shadow, peering around corners before entering rooms and asking permission to touch almost everything. She stayed pretty quiet, except at mealtimes, when she’d smile widely, regardless of the food, and would eagerly assure Rick that it was the best chicken or casserole or pizza or burrito she had ever tasted. Linda knew her husband was lapping up the compliments, his ego as a cook inflating, but she wasn’t so sure. One night, they had fish in lemon butter sauce—often a toss-up with kids—and though Skye professed it was the “yummiest fish in the world,” when Linda looked at Skye out of the corner of her eye, she saw the little girl screwing up her face and taking a too-big bite, as if she were trying to get rid of it as quickly as possible.

After the second week, Linda decided to bring the matter up. “Skye, you know you don’t have to love everything we make, right? We always want you to try new things, and it’s very polite that you say thank you every time—and that’s good—but if you don’t like it, you can say something like, ‘I don’t really care for this,’ or ‘this isn’t my favorite.’ It’s not going to hurt my feelings, or Rick’s.”

The girl looked chagrined. “Oh. I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. 

“Don’t apologize for having extra-good manners, sweetie. But we’d like to know your preferences so we can have meals you especially like sometimes, and try to avoid things that make you feel sick. Do you have a favorite food?”

Skye looked up and then down at her hands. She shook her head. 

“I’m sure there are some foods you like a bit more than everything else. C’mon, Skye, tell me!” Linda encouraged.

Skye blushed. “It’s stupid. It’s not a grown-up food.”

Linda whispered conspiratorially. “Not all good food is ‘grown-up’ food. Me, I like chicken nuggets.”

Skye giggled. “I like grilled cheese the best.”

Linda smiled. “Well, sounds like we’re having grilled cheese for dinner today!” 

Over the next few days, Skye remained polite and careful, but grew a little more relaxed in the house. Linda considered it a good sign when Skye started to take an interest in Rick’s brand new translucent blue iMac that he’d set up in the living room. “State of the art,” her husband explained, happy he finally had someone who cared about the device besides himself. Rick worked in IT and was always buying expensive new devices that Linda insisted were completely unnecessary. Nobody needed a computer in their house.

Skye loved it, though, and after dinner, the two of them would sit in front of the computer playing a space arcade game. One night, Skye shot down a particularly evasive meteor and let out a loud _whoop!_ She immediately glanced around the house nervously, but Rick just laughed and said, “hey! You’re getting better than me! Stop that!” with a smile. Once they’d exhausted all the levels in the space arcade, Rick started to teach her rudimentary code because, like he told her, “that way, someday you can design a game that even _you_ can’t beat.”

Linda knew that the carefully well-behaved child wouldn’t last forever. She knew, in part, that it was a performance, that Skye was trying really, really hard to be as perfect as possible, but with every slightly louder laugh or opinion that the girl expressed, her hope swelled that soon the girl would learn that she didn’t have to earn their approval. She simply had to be herself, and they’d tackle life together.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs for mild-moderate description of bullying, physical child abuse, and general unpleasant words regarding foster kids.

Two and a half weeks later, Skye sat stony-faced in the SUV’s backseat, her eyes fixed ahead of her. A shadow of a bruise was beginning to solidify around her right eye. It was twelve-thirty in the afternoon on Thursday, a school day, and she knew she was in trouble.

The principal’s office had called Linda forty-five minutes before to tell her that ‘Mary Sue’ had gotten into a fight and would need to go home for the day, and would be suspended from school until the end of the week. According to the stern vice-principal who had been waiting with Skye when Linda arrived, she had pushed a fifth-grade boy during recess, instigating a fight, and the other child had swung back with a punch, causing her the bruise to her eye. 

“It’s certainly not the first time,” the woman added after Skye stepped away to use the girls’ room. “When she started school in August, she already was pretty scraped up from scuffles with the other campers at her summer camp, and she came to school a few times in the fall with bruises on her face and knuckles from fights with other kids in her old neighborhood. She’s managed to keep her temper for the last few months at school, but you know how it is with _those_ kids. Who knows what her mother was on when she was expecting her? It messes with their little minds, you know?” Skye opened the bathroom door and crept out, and the administrator shook her head a bit, lips pursed.

When they got home, Skye immediately started to head to her room, eyes staring at the floor. 

“Not so fast!” Linda called after her. “We need to talk about today, honey.” She sat down on the couch in their living room and gestured for Skye to sit next to her. She’d had the day off work, but Rick wasn’t home yet, and so the house was empty. 

“Do you want to tell me what happened, Skye?” she asked when the girl shuffled over and sat next to her.

Skye shook her head.

“Alright. Well, I have nowhere to be, so let’s just sit here for a while, shall we?” Linda folded her hands over her lap and waited. Five minutes passed by, with Skye getting increasingly fidgety. Finally, the child mumbled.

“I ran into Bryce, and he hit me in the face, and then he told Mrs. Matthews I hit him.”

“Did you run into him on purpose?”

Skye shook her head. “Ben tripped me. He was laughing. He told Bryce, ‘nah-nah, you’re getting beaten up by a girl!’ and then Bryce got really mad and hit me.” 

Linda paused. She wanted to believe Skye, but she’d only known the girl three weeks. She knew full well that some kids could seem like angels at home and behave completely differently at school, and vice versa. She herself had gone through her elementary schools years as a model student at school and a little terror in her home, according to her own mother.

As she wondered, Skye assumed her silence meant she was dismissed and started to walk away. As Skye moved towards her room, Linda Brody spotted a flash of red she hadn’t seen before right above the nine-year-old’s lacy socks. “Sweetie, come here.” Skye screwed up her face, but walked back reluctantly. “Let me see your ankle.” She gently lifted Skye’s foot off the ground once she had sat back down. Sure enough, it was scuffed and red, with a painful looking imprint and a growing welt. “Is this where Ben tripped you?” 

Skye nodded. 

“Why were you running towards Bryce?”

“I wasn’t. Well, sorta. Me and Lucia were playing tag. I was gonna hide behind the tree and Bryce was standing next to it.” 

_Hm._ Linda had been planning on taking away Skye’s computer time with Rick and access to the tire swing for two weeks, but she was rethinking the punishment. It really did seem like Skye was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, with teachers and administrators who had already made up their minds about her since the moment she arrived. At that thought, she was struck by another doubt. She tried to keep her voice friendly and even.

“I believe you, Skye. He shouldn’t have hit you. That wasn’t nice, and it’s never OK to hit someone.” She paused, “so, I heard you went to summer camp last summer. That must have been fun.”

Skye nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

“So, tell me about it. What kind of things did you do?” Linda queried.

“Um… games and stuff.” 

“Was it day-camp or overnight camp?”

Skye looked at her, a little confused. “Um…”

“Did you spend the night there?”

Skye nodded. “Uh… yeah.” 

“Do you remember where it was? Tell me about the place.”

“Just a camp. I don’t know.” Skye’s eyes darted around. She was getting antsy. 

“And then when you were done, did you go to a foster family’s house or St. Agnes?” 

“Uh… St. Agnes?” Skye answered.

“Oh, cool. So you must have started school at this elementary school in November, right? Around Thanksgiving?”

Skye nodded vigorously, kicking her feet against the sofa and looking away.   
Linda sighed. Just like she had thought—the administrator had said Skye started school in August, which was what Linda remembered from reading Skye’s educational records weeks before. She’d doubted the story about summer camp, and Skye’s uncertainty about the subject, her eagerness to affirm every option Linda offered and not disagree or offer new information, just confirmed her suspicions.

Linda Brody kept her voice even, trying not to let the anger she felt at the school bleed out lest Skye think it was directed at her. “Skye, who told you to lie about summer camp?”

Skye’s eyes immediately welled up with tears. “I’m not lying, Linda! I swear!”

“I’m not mad at you, honey. But I know you didn’t go to summer camp. And I know you’ve been going to that school since the beginning of the school year. Did someone tell you to tell your teachers you got into fights at camp?” 

Skye looked up at her, her brown eyes wide like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. Her mouth hung slightly open, and she sat there, paralyzed.

“You can tell me, Skye.”

Skye’s voice was small when she answered. “C- C- Carl.” 

“Who’s Carl, sweetie? Did he hurt you?”

She shook her head. “No. It- it was Mason. He’s a big boy, in high school, and he didn’t like me in his house. Said it wasn’t cool to have a baby as a sister, ‘specially not one who isn’t even really your sister. He’d, um, he’d push me and twist my arm till it really, really hurt. Sometimes he and his friends would hit me if I didn’t run good enough. Carl didn’t want Mason gettin’ in trouble so he told me to tell grown-ups about camp, and the bullies in the neighborhood.” She sniffed. “He said he wasn’t going to let anything happen to his son over his wife’s ‘charity case.’” The tears finally broke free, and Skye sobbed. “I’m really, really sorry I lied.”

Linda hugged her, pushing aside her anger at the cowardly father and the teenage punk who’d beat up a kid. Embracing the crying nine-year-old, she assured her, “thank you for telling me the truth, Skye. It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault. It wasn’t right for Mason to hurt you or for Carl to make you lie.”

The two sat on the couch in silence for a while, wrapped in an embrace, as Skye’s sobs gradually slowed. 

“You know what? Rick isn’t going to be home for another two hours. How ‘bout we surprise him with some fresh chocolate chip cookies for when he gets back from work?” Linda’s eyes twinkled at her foster daughter. “And if we just so happen to have a couple ourselves in the meantime, wellll.” She winked. “I’m sure he won’t mind.” 

Skye hiccuped and then giggled, nodding. 

Linda opened the door of the pantry and shuffled around until she found a bag of chocolate chips and the flour container. As she went to close the door, she felt a squeeze around her waist. She looked down to see Skye peering up at her.

“Thanks… Mom.”


	3. Chapter 3

Despite Linda’s best efforts to convince the school that Skye hadn’t actually instigated the fight, they refused to budge on the suspension. So, Skye stayed home the next day, but Linda decided not to impose any additional punishment. Rick had Fridays off from work, and Linda used a sick day, so around midday, they decided that Rick would take Skye to get ice cream while Linda made a very necessary call.

Sister Regina, the nun who answered her call to St. Agnes, sounded bored and unsurprised. “What’d she do this time?” Sister Regina asked before Linda could get a word in edgewise.

“What? No, nothing. Why would you—, uh, never mind. I’m actually calling regarding Skye’s previous foster home.” Linda remembered a second later that Skye’s name was legally ‘Mary Sue,’ but the nun didn’t seem to question who she was referring to.

“Yes?”

“I have reason to believe the father was covering for his son physically attacking Skye over a period of several months. He made her lie to the school about trouble at a summer camp she never attended and scuffles with neighborhood bullies.” Linda tried her best to keep her voice calm. “The school mentioned that she often came to school hurt and bruised, but they explained it away saying that she was prone to fights, even though she had never been in a fight on school grounds.”

The nun let out a light _hmph._ “And you believe a manipulative nine-year-old over professionals? Besides, Carl Richards is a doctor, a cardiologist, and has fostered several children in the past. No complaints. Not one. His wife Maria is a doll, always bringing donations for the kids. Mary Sue lied, simple as that.” 

“Well, you wouldn’t get complaints if the kids are being threatened, would you? And Skye wasn’t being manipulative. She tried to keep up the story about camp until I caught her in a contradiction, and she didn’t want to tell me.”

“So you’re claiming that Mary Sue wasn’t lying on the basis of her lying to you? Ms. Brody, please, what do you take me for?”

“She was scared!” Linda protested, shocked that someone in charge of children’s wellbeing would be so dismissive of a potential case of abuse. “The school saw the bruises and didn’t do anything. Are you saying that your institution wouldn’t do anything either? Have more children been sent to Mr. Richards?”

“I’m afraid you’re not permitted to that information, Ms. Brody. I’m sorry I can’t help you further. Have a nice day. I’ll be awaiting your call when you’ve finally seen through Mary Sue’s––”

“Her name is Skye!” Linda interjected. 

“Nonsense. A child can’t choose what he or she wants to be called. A name is a name, and this child is named Mary Sue. By indulging her, you’re just going to confuse her when she goes to the next home, where hopefully they’ll have the dignity to insist she go by her God-given name.”

“First, Mary Sue is not her ‘God-given’ name. It’s what you decided to call her, and she doesn’t like it. I am going to respect her decision, and you’re not going to change my mind. Second, me calling her ‘Skye’ won’t cause any confusion in the future, because Rick and I plan on adopting her. When we do, we’ll change her name legally if she wants, and that’ll be that. ‘Skye Brody’ and nobody’s confused.”

On the other end of the line, Linda only heard silence. The pause stretched out so long that she was convinced the nun had simply hung up. Then, she heard the nun’s shocked, “what?” 

“Rick and I are going to adopt Skye,” Linda repeated.

“Surely you can’t be serious. It’s only been a month. This is the honeymoon stage.”

“Sure,” Linda agreed. “I’m sure there’ll be some bad times. But we’ll stick with her through the highs and the lows, when they come. We want her to be our daughter. We’re not shopping for a perfect kid. We’ll take Skye, whatever comes.”

“I’m-, well-, um-, I’m not sure if that’s possible,” the nun sputtered.

“Why? I’m not sending her back to an incompetent facility that can’t recognize child abuse and that forces a little girl to answer to a name she doesn’t like. I know she has no relatives. It’s clear as day on her file. Sure, the process might take a while, but we’re going to stick it out.”

“But––” the nun interjected.

“Thank you for your _endless_ help.”

Linda hung up the phone, determined. _Good going,_ she thought. _Mom._ She smiled.

* * *

On Monday, Linda was nervous as she waited in the carpool line to pick up Skye. She didn’t trust the school, not after what had happened on Thursday and their negligence towards Skye’s bruises from her previous foster home. She stopped in front of the fourth graders. A fifth-grader with a neon patrol belt stepped forward to open the backdoor of her SUV, but Skye didn’t get in. Linda scanned the faces of the gathered kids. She didn’t see Skye anywhere.

Linda rolled down her window and motioned to the teacher. He looked nervous. Before Linda could speak, Skye’s teacher muttered, “Mrs. Brody, administration asked to speak to you.”

“And why didn’t they call me?”

The teacher shook his head. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but that’s all they said. You need to go speak to administration.”

Anxiety built in Linda’s chest as she moved out of the carpool line and parked the SUV. She walked into the office. The principal strolled out and shook her hand, almost pulling her into his personal office.

“What’s going on, Mr. Brown? Where’s my daughter?”

“Mary Sue Poots no longer attends school here. And I’m sorry, ma’am, but she’s not your daughter, is she? She was your foster daughter.”

“She _is_ my foster daughter, and my husband and I are planning on adopting her.” 

Mr. Brown shook his head. “That’s all I know, ma’am. State social workers came to pick her up this morning. I was told that is all you are allowed to know. I’m sorry I can’t provide more information. Thank you for your time,” he said as a way of dismissal.

Linda Brody sat there, refusing to move, stunned. “Surely you can’t just take my child and not give me any information!”

Mr. Brown sighed. “Again, she is not _your_ child. And I did not take her. When state services come to pick up a child, we have to comply. I’m sorry, ma’am, but that’s all the information I can provide.” He glared at her, silent accusations in his eyes. Linda felt her stomach drop.

Linda drove home as if in a trance. She called St. Agnes Orphanage, the state foster system, Child Protective Services, everyone that she could possibly think of, but nobody gave her any information. It was as if Skye had simply disappeared. Over the next few weeks, she made the two-hour trek to St. Agnes several times, but the nuns never confirmed if Skye was there, nor let her through the door. The last time, they threatened to call the police if she continued to harass the institution, and she left, feeling like a failure of a mother. Likewise, the foster system seemed to have frozen to her. They refused to answer her questions or even assign Rick and her another child. 

Finally, Linda and Rick stopped looking, heartbroken and resigned.

Skye was gone.


	4. Seventeen Years Later

**Seventeen Years Later**

“Shaniqua, turn that off and set the table!” Linda Brody called from the kitchen, where she was stirring the tomato sauce for dinner. She glanced over her shoulder. Her sixteen-old-daughter didn’t make any move to obey but kept staring at the TV.

“Come on, Mom! Dad’s out of town and Al’s at school. Why do we have to set the table for just the two of us? Can’t we watch something while we eat? Please?” 

Linda laughed. She’d heard this argument a dozen times before, ever since Rick started traveling more for work and her middle son, Alonso, started grad school. “Really? I’m that boring?” she joked.

“Well… not _that_ boring,” her daughter teased. “Come on, just five more minutes? It’s the news. It’s _educational_.” _Sure, educational,_ thought Linda. Like you could trust half the things the news said anyway. If it wasn’t political slant or endless partisan debates one day, it was crude celebrity gossip and conspiracy theories about the whereabouts of Captain America and the other rogue Avengers the next. _Super_ educational.

“Since when do you watch the news?”

“Since real life got more exciting than cop shows and vampire dramas,” her daughter answered. 

Linda sighed. Shaniqua was hyper but incredibly smart, and Linda had little doubt that if her daughter was watching the news, it was because she was actually curious about some or another current event. Shaniqua was right. Didn’t that beat the same old procedurals or teen gossip shows? 

“Fine, five more minutes. But then we’re eating at the table. No ‘buts’.” 

Linda hated to be the parent that gave in, but during her second round of parenting with Alonso and Shaniqua, she had learned to be less rigid than she had been with Randy. Sometimes it was better to lose the battle but win the war, and sometimes, the battle didn’t matter that much anyway. She was grateful for her kids. She and Rick had been forced to move to a different state just to have a chance at fostering and adopting again after being blacklisted for reasons they still couldn’t explain to themselves. A few years after their move, they finally started fostering again, eventually adopting 10-year-old Alonso and later 6-year-old Shaniqua. 

The new kids had filled their house with energy again, bringing all the joys and challenges, nights of worry and triumphant moments they had been hoping for when they decided to adopt. Little by little, their hearts had healed from the child who had been ripped away from them, although they always worried that someday they’d walk into Al or Shaniqua’s rooms and the kids would just be gone forever. Well, Alonso was no longer in his room, but he was moving on to bigger and better things.

Linda glanced at her watch. The five minutes had passed. She turned around, ready to tell her daughter to shut off the TV and come set the table. She paused as she caught sight of the commotion on the TV. Emergency vehicles filled the background. A group of firefighters huddled together with policemen, and mobs of reporters could be seen behind the blond CNB correspondent. She quickly willed it not be yet another mass shooting, and breathed a sigh of relief when the reporter announced 0 casualties. Apparently, a madman had threatened to detonate a bomb in downtown Los Angeles, but the motive remained unknown, and the crisis had been averted.

Linda approached the remote, satisfied that the world wasn’t ending (yet), when another image flashed onto the screen, and her heart stopped.

It was Skye.

Linda’s world screeched to a halt. 

Nothing made sense. Linda didn’t know how she knew, except she did. Yet everything was different. The caption read, “ _Quake a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent all along_.” Linda vaguely recalled news of Quake over the summer, a mysterious powered person causing alarming earthquakes across the country, but she’d hardly followed or even believed the story. The name ‘Daisy Johnson’ meant even less to her.

But she was her mother—if only briefly—and she’d know that look anywhere. Despite the dark, smudged eyeshadow, the black suit, and the grown woman’s body, the eyes were the same. Linda saw the bewildered, deer-in-the-headlights look—with brown eyes so full of feeling, peering out of an oval face, mouth dangling slightly open. It was the same look that Skye gave her when Linda had discovered she had been forced to lie about how she’d gotten her bruises. Linda was struck, again, by the strange mix of vulnerability and strength the girl—the _woman_ ––held in that gaze. 

“Sh- Shaniqua,” she choked out, realizing a second too late that she was crying.

“Alright Mom, geez, alright, I’m turning it off.”

“No!” Linda said, a little too forcefully. “No,” she added, more softly. “I want to watch it.” She picked up the two plates she had prepared and settled down on the couch with her daughter. She handed the second plate to Shaniqua and, tears running down her cheeks, embraced her daughter with her free arm.

“Mom…?” the teenager asked, confused.

“You’re right, honey. Let’s watch it.”

As image after image from Los Angeles flashed across her screen, Linda Brody held on for dear life to the daughter she had, and cherished the fleeting glimpses of the one she had lost.


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Brodys go to Chicago to look for Daisy at a SHIELD forum held in the city.

**Chicago, October 2018**

_Rick was right… we did not think this through,_ Linda thought as she navigated the halls outside the auditorium, searching for a bathroom. She could hear the sounds of the crowd filing out behind her.

She fanned herself with the plain manila envelope in her hand. Her disappointment peaked, morphing into frustration. Really, it wasn’t nearly cold enough outside to turn the heat up so high.

At the first announcement of the upcoming forum in Chicago with SHIELD to address the events from the spring, she and Rick had hopped into their car and driven the five hours to the city from their home in Louisville.

The forum was announced only one day in advance, but Linda could not bear to miss it. Not if there was a chance Skye would be there. She could finally get some answers.

After seeing Skye––Quake, Daisy Johnson, she really didn’t know what to call her––on the news in 2016, she and Rick had been too stunned to act right away. Rick was less convinced than she that the woman on the screen was really the little girl they had fostered so many years ago. “Don’t you think you may just be seeing what you want to see, hon’?” he’d insisted every time she brought Skye up. 

Finally, Rick had agreed to look into the matter with her, but by that time, it had all gone to hell.

SHIELD had been discredited, all remaining SHIELD agents were fugitives, and a video circulated 24/7 for weeks of a stony-faced Quake shooting a United States Air Force general in the forehead.

Linda had watched the clip dozens of times. It made her sick, but it also didn’t feel right. 

Then Chicago happened, and Quake and SHIELD were all over the news again, this time as heroes, though a few news channels never ceased spouting conspiracy theories, saying that SHIELD had induced the attack just to trick everyone into believing that they were the saviors. 

Linda felt exhilarated, though. She knew that Skye wasn’t a killer. 

Sure, perfectly life-accurate autonomous robots were a little out-there, but they were living in a world with alien invasions and Norse gods and World War II heroes come to life, after all. 

Robots were really the least crazy thing she’d had to believe in recently.

Of course, when they’d gotten to the auditorium, they couldn’t find a single representative from SHIELD to speak to. All of the guards were local cops, not SHIELD personnel, and spy agencies hardly hold a meet-and-greet after Q&A. No, it was not a very well thought-out plan.

Linda grumbled as she approach the end of the hall. She was a five minutes’ walk from the front of the auditorium. Where were they hiding the bathrooms in this place?

Suddenly, she caught the sounds of laughter around the corner and slowed. She recognized the deep voice of the SHIELD director who had spoken minutes before, Director Mackenzie, if she was remembering correctly.

“How 'bout you be Mrs. Sweaty-Cardigan-Guy? He seemed to really dig you.”

“Hey, don’t knock cardigans! They’re a very sensible fashion choice,” Linda heard a British voice chime in.

The director gave a baritone laugh in response. “Well then, how about that fellow who wanted to become ‘Mr. Johnson’?”

At the retort that followed, Linda stopped in her tracks.

“I don’t know, but some ladies in there sure wanted a piece of Director Mack.”

It was Skye. Linda recognized her voice from the few words she had spoken answering questions during the presentation. Only now, her voice sounded lighter.

“Watch it, he is all mine,” purred a husky voice with an accent Linda couldn’t quite place.

Linda clutched the envelope tighter and breathed deeply. She couldn’t let this opportunity get away from her.

As Linda rounded the corner, the small gaggle of SHIELD agents all stopped their joking and glanced at her. 

“Skye?” she asked.

The young woman’s eyes widened in shock. Before Linda could say another word, Skye turned on her heels and darted around the far corner of the hallway.

“Skye!” Linda repeated, rushing forward to follow her. 

A small, Asian woman clad in leather stepped forward, blocking her path.

“Get out,” the woman growled.

“I’m sorry,” Linda stuttered. “I just wanted to talk to Sk-… Miss Johnson.” 

The woman said nothing but continued to glare at her. 

Linda felt her blood turn to ice. She felt suddenly, inexplicably terrified of the woman before her. 

One of the other women and Director Mackenzie glanced at each other. The director stepped forward, looking more conciliatory but firm. “Yes, but she doesn’t seem to want to speak to you. So it’s better you leave.”

Linda nodded. She looked back at the woman planted in front of her. “OK, I’ll go. But could you give this to her? Please?”

She extended the envelope. The woman stared at her for a few more seconds and then reluctantly reached forward and took it from her. 

“Thank you.”

Linda turned. As she walked away, she glanced over her shoulder. Each member of the small group was staring in her direction, watching her leave.

She might have been imagining things, but she thought she felt the slightest rumble on the hallway floor as she walked.

* * *

Daisy glanced up at May as her S.O. rounded the corner. “Thank you,” she muttered, embarrassed.

May nodded, watching her. 

Finally, when it became clear that Daisy wasn’t going to speak, May broke the silence. “Foster mother?” 

Daisy nodded. “How’d you guess?” Daisy asked with an attempt at a goofy smile. May ignored the deflection. 

“She hurt you?” May asked cautiously, preparing to intercept the departing woman and strangle her if Daisy answered in the affirmative. 

Daisy snorted. “Gosh, no.” She glanced at May. “Would’ve been easier if she had, really. No, she and her husband were probably the best foster parents I had, for a while. Always making sure I was OK. Rick… her husband, he was the one who got me started in CS.”

“For a while?”

Daisy sank against the wall. “I had to go and screw it all up.” She shrugged. “Got into a fight at school, lied about it, and a few days later, it was back to St. Agnes with me. Once again.”

“How old were you?”

“Nine or ten, I think. You know, they didn’t even have the guts to take me back themselves?” Daisy scoffed. “They just acted like nothing was wrong. I think they even took me out for ice cream… to make themselves feel better, I guess. Then, my first day back at school after being suspended, they sent the social worker to pick me up from class.”

May mentally calculated how far away the woman might have gotten during her and Daisy’s conversation. She may just be able to reach her… but beating up a civilian right as SHIELD was trying to regain trust was a bad call.

That failure of a mother better thank her lucky stars they were in public, May seethed.

“The nuns were pissed,” Daisy continued. “Sister Ruth went on and on for a week about how they would never be rid of me.”

May’s internal fury grew to encompass the nun as well. Why didn’t either of these idiots know how lucky they were?

“What’s that?” Daisy asked, cutting off May’s thoughts.

May glanced down at the envelope. “She wanted me to give this to you. I can toss it.” 

Daisy shook her head. “I should at least look at it. With my luck it’s probably blackmail or, I dunno, friggin’ anthrax.”

May raised an eyebrow.

“OK, not anthrax,” Daisy conceded. “Even she’s not _that_ devious.”

Daisy opened the envelope and pulled out a piece of lined paper and two photographs. She gave a scathing look at the pictures before tossing them at May and then began to read the letter.

As Daisy read, May looked at the photos. The first showed a much younger version of the woman from the hallway, along with a balding man and a wide-eyed child, around a table at a restaurant that looked to be an old Applebees, with a stained-glass lamp hanging over the table. 

Despite her fury at the situation and the gnawing at her heart that became a permanent fixture ever since Coulson had died months before, she felt a soft warmth spreading through her.

She’d never seen Daisy as a child. The girl looked scared and so small, cowering like she was trying to hide behind her hair. Small red numbers in the corner of the photo read 3/4/99. Daisy was almost eleven there? No wonder no one ever questioned why Daisy’s fake birthday made her almost a year younger than her actual age. She was so, so tiny.

May looked at the other photo. The contrast couldn’t have been greater. 

In this photo, Daisy looked to be howling with laughter in a tall young man’s arms, her dark hair flying out behind her as she beamed into the camera, her head tossed back. May glanced at the date. 3/27/99. 

“I doubt they’re planning on using these for blackmail,” May gave Daisy a slight grin. “Unless you’re terrified of the world finding out you used to be adorable.”

“Hey, I am still adorable, thank you very much.” Daisy narrowed her eyes. “Look at this bullshit.”

She shoved the letter into May’s hands.

May scanned the letter. 

_Dear Skye,_

_I’m sorry. I don’t know what name you prefer, if I should call you Daisy or Skye or something else. My name is Linda Brody. I don’t know if you remember me or my husband, Rick. You lived with us in 1999._

_I don’t mean to intrude on your life. Please feel free to ignore this if you want to. You have every right. We are just trying to figure out what happened, back then. I don’t know if you know what happened, but I think that maybe, you might be just as confused as we are._

_One day, we were starting the process to adopt you, and then you disappeared. We dropped you off at school one morning, and when I went to pick you up that afternoon, you were gone. We called everyone, Skye—CPS, the foster system, St. Agnes—and no one would tell us why you had been taken from us or even where they had taken you. They just told us that a social worker had picked you up, and you were no longer our foster daughter._

_We tormented ourselves with questions for so long, wondering what we had done, why we had been blacklisted, why you had been taken. Eventually we had to move on and put our lives back together. But we never forgot about you._

_I don’t know if you have answers, or if you are just as confused as we are. I just want you to know, we never left you. I’d love to talk, and get to know who you are today._

_If you want to connect, we’re in Chicago for another two days, and then we’ll be back home in Louisville. We moved after what happened. Feel free to call or drop in any time._

_I hope to hear from you,_

_Linda_

Below, she’d written the address of a hotel in Chicago and a home address in Kentucky, as well as a few phone numbers.

May looked up at Daisy. Daisy’s face was streaked with tears, and her eyes flashed fire. “What BS, right? Just what I needed. ” 

May paused. When she spoke, her voice was cautious. “What if she’s not lying?”

“Seriously? You’re taking her side? She just wants a piece of the screwed-up celebrity that comes with being close to a… a…”

“Superhero?”

“I was going to go with murdering freakshow, but yeah, I guess.”

May glanced at the letter. “Daisy… do you remember what Phil told you? About Lumley and the SHIELD agents who found you when you were a baby?”

Daisy’s eyes squeezed shut at the mention of Coulson’s name. His death was still so raw. “They hid me from ‘the monsters,’ and got themselves slaughtered trying,” Daisy muttered.

“And ordered the foster system to move you around every few months.”

“So?”

“So, what do you think they would do with a couple determined to keep you?”

Daisy placed her face in her hands. “Honestly, I just don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?”

Daisy’s voice was barely audible through her hands. “Why anyone would even bother.”

May’s eyes settled on the photo of the giggling girl still in her hand. “I would have.”

Daisy peered up at her. 

“Go talk to them.”

“You? You’re telling me to go ‘talk it out’?” 

May rolled her eyes. “I’m full of surprises.” She paused. “Not for her. For you. And if it turns it out she’s in it for the celebrity, you can just quake her ass. And punch her in the face for me. Twice.”

“Now that sounds more like you.” Daisy swallowed. “OK.”

* * *

Linda and Rick were sitting in silence, each nursing a mug of decaf coffee and staring out the window at the Chicago skyline, when a quiet knock on the door made them turn.

They shared a glance.

Linda nervously approached the door and looked into the peephole.

Skye—Daisy—was leaning against the wall across the hall, dressed in tight black jeans and an oversized sweater. Linda realized she’d never seen her out of her tactical suit, not as an adult, anyway. She looked younger. Softer.

“Hi,” Linda whispered, opening the door. “Thank you for coming.”

“Sure,” the woman replied. 

“Come in. Or, I don’t know, we could go get dinner, if you’d prefer?”

Her former foster daughter shook her head, her arms crossed. “No. I’m not staying very long, anyway.”

“OK,” she nodded. “Rick’s in here. Come in, Skye.”

“Daisy,” the girl corrected.

“Oh, I was wondering. Daisy.” Linda smiled. “It suits you.”

Daisy didn’t respond. She looked like she was struggling to find the right words. Linda paused and Rick also refrained from speaking. Daisy stood awkwardly in the center of the room, even though Linda offered her a seat at the table.

“Look,” Daisy started. “I don’t know what I’m trying to accomplish by coming here, and I don’t know what you want, so if you could just come out with it and save us all the time, that’d be great because I’ve had an epically sucky year.” 

Linda nodded. “OK.” She breathed. “I’m sorry, Daisy. I’m sorry you’ve had a bad year. I’m sorry for startling you back there at the auditorium. I hope you got a chance to read my letter.

Daisy nodded.

“OK. Well, that’s basically what we came to say. We just want to figure out what happened, and to see how you’re doing.”

“Why do you even care?” Daisy asked with a scowl. “Foster kids come and go all the time. I wasn’t your first, and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t your last either. That’s hardly a reason to follow me across the country.”

Linda considered Daisy for a moment. She desperately wanted to say the right thing, to make her understand. “You’re right, on both accounts,” she conceded. “It’s always hard to say goodbye to a child you’ve grown to love, but in the foster system, you have to do it…sometimes a lot. And after you left, we did foster, and adopt, two of the most wonderful kids in Kentucky. But with you… how can I explain it? We had no idea what happened to you. You were just gone one day.”

Daisy let out a skeptical _hmph_.

“Sweetie––Daisy,” she quickly corrected when she saw Daisy’s scowl deepen. “We were so worried about you. We knew those people weren’t protecting you, before, that they were letting other families get away with hurting you, and we didn’t want that to happen again. Then you were gone, and we had absolutely no way of knowing what was happening or stopping it from happening again.”

She watched as a shadow passed over Daisy’s eyes, confirming their fears from long ago. “I could take care of myself,” Daisy muttered.

“You should never have had to. That’s the job we signed up for when we decided to be parents. Something was obviously not right in that situation. We tried, Daisy, we tried. We contacted everyone we could, but they wouldn’t give us any answers. They wouldn’t even let us foster again. We finally had to give up, and we moved hoping in a new place we’d get the chance to help more kids. We never found out what happened.”

Daisy studied both of them, then sighed heavily. “I did.”

Linda cast a glance at Rick. 

They listened as Daisy explained SHIELD’s protection program. It made sense, Linda supposed, feeling the pieces slowly fit together in her mind. 

Still, she felt a flash of anger rush through her. Couldn’t they have protected the little girl in a way that was less… cruel? She and Rick had carried the weight of uncertainty on their shoulders for two decades, and as much as Daisy was trying to act aloof, Linda could read the young woman’s feelings of abandonment on every inch of her face. 

Had she ever been able to feel wanted?

When Daisy finished her explanation, she and Rick sat in stunned silence. Daisy studied them and then, finally, sat joining them at the table. After a moment, Linda spoke. “Thank you for telling us. Daisy, I am so, so sorry for what happened.”

Daisy shrugged. “It’s fine. It wasn’t your fault. I mean, I see that now, anyway.”

“Still,” Linda added, “it must have been so hard.”

“So,” Rick interjected after a moment, trying to lighten the mood, “did you keep up with the coding?” 

Daisy smiled widely, and Linda caught a glimpse of the little girl she had been behind the grin. “Well…I sorta hacked into SHIELD. And the NSA.” 

“Attagirl,” Rick grinned. Linda shot him a stern look. “What?” He protested. “She works for SHIELD now, hon; it obviously turned out just fine.”

Daisy laughed. “Yeah, SHIELD actually recruited me for the hacking. The earthquake stuff came out of left field a bit later.” She grinned. “The NSA wasn’t _super_ thrilled, though.”

Linda rolled her eyes at her husband’s look of unabashed delight. Still, she felt her heart growing lighter and lighter.

“How’s Randy doing?” Daisy asked.

Linda grinned. “Made me a grandma, so I can’t complain.” She pulled out her phone. “Here, let me show you some photos.” 

Daisy smiled as she looked at the picture of Randy, arm in arm with his husband, with a toddler bouncing on his hip.

* * *

Daisy watched Linda chatter as she flicked through photo after photo.

It was so weird––a blast from the past so soon after her trip to the future––but at the same time, it was _nice_.

She felt a buzz in her back pocket, and pulled out her own phone.

She opened the text from May.

“You good?” it read.

She glanced at the middle-aged couple happily chattering next to her, and typed back.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to ravciks for encouraging me to write an epilogue! 
> 
> Somehow, the epilogue ended up almost as long as the story itself. Whoops.
> 
> Love to hear your thoughts :)


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